


Beaten and Broken, Still I Rise

by hope27



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 06:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10531086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope27/pseuds/hope27
Summary: A Post-Episode fic for 5x17.After Oliver comes back to the lair from being held by Chase, he relies on the two people who have always been there for him - Felicity and Diggle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So I wrote this right after the episode, but the weeks got busy so I’m finally getting around to post it! I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> As always, I love to hear what you guys think!

Felicity didn’t say a word as she gently took hold of Oliver’s hand and guided him to her chair.

He sank down with a heavy sigh, his head bent forward.

She moved silently but quickly, waiting until everyone but John had filed out to begin taking stock of his wounds.

She hated that she recognized the large, gaping hole in his shoulder as one from an arrow. John wheeled the medical supplies over and together they began to triage their friend in silence.

She let John work on his shoulder while she leaned over to look at the area where his Bratva tattoo once resided black against his tan skin. Only burned flesh remained now, and she bit back the bile rising in her throat as she poured alcohol on some gauze.

Opening her mouth, she tried to warn him, but the words wouldn’t come. They stuck deep in her heart as she looked at his deflated shoulders. He looked like a broken and defeated man.

Instead of using words, she reached out and squeezed his hand, the gauze hovering over his marred skin.

He seemed to understand because she saw him draw a deep breath and then she pressed it against his chest.

He flinched, the muscles in his chest flexing but he didn’t make a sound.

Tears welled in her eyes. She hated this. Hated that he’d had to go through whatever Adrian had done to him. Whatever it was, it was enough to make him want to quit; to stop being the Green Arrow.

And that wasn’t the Oliver Queen she knew - the one that had stayed with her nine months ago to protect the city they called their own. After everything they had been through…he wouldn’t just quit. He couldn’t…

With careful hands, she wiped away the blood seeping from the fresh burn and took the antiseptic cream that John handed her while she pusher her swirling thoughts to the back of her mind, focusing only on taking care of him.

She could see it looked like a clean burn - no debris that needed to be cleaned out of it. Later the dead skin would have to be removed, but that could wait.

Placing the cream over his wound, she covered it with fresh gauze and added a gentle layer of tape, making sure to apply it over the good skin still intact.

As John stitched up his shoulder, she searched the rest of his body, her fingers gliding over familiar planes and muscles; her heart aching.

When she reached his face, he let her tip his head and his eyes briefly met with hers.

“Oliver…”

It was barely a whisper, but she knew he heard it because the tremor that ran through him and the sigh that escaped his lips.

Carefully, she wiped away the trails of blood from the scraps on his forehead and cheek as John put away the supplies and bandaged his shoulder.

“I’ll check the burn tomorrow,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “You need to eat and get some rest, Oliver. We can talk in the morning.”

“The decision is made, John,” Oliver replied, his voice firm but tired.

John said nothing, instead resting a hand on his good shoulder momentarily before nodding to Felicity and heading towards the elevator.

“Call me if you need me,” John said before the doors closed, directed at both of them.

Silence settled around them. The whirring of her computers the only sounds left besides their steady breaths.

Slowly, Felicity stood and placed the cloth she’d been using to clean Oliver’s face on the cart of medical supplies near the bottom of the steps before returning to him.

“Let’s get you home,” she told him, picking up his Green Arrow jacket and quiver on the way to get his clothes that he’d worn to the lair six days prior. She wasn’t sure why she took the time to put the jacket and quiver back on the mannequin but it felt important to do it so she did.

He remained silent as she helped him put on the t-shirt, slipping the jacket over his shoulders, careful of his injuries. She ignored the fact that he still had on the Green Arrow pants - after all he’d just walked from wherever Chase had been holding him in them.

He moved with her, and she worried at his lack of emotion; the calm yet troubled silence he’d fallen into since he’d returned to them.

That moment had been relief mixed with instant dread at the look on his face. She knew before he even spoke that he wasn’t the same man who was taken from them. Something had happened to him while he was with Chase, and whatever it was had broken him down to a man she wasn’t sure he would even recognize. 

He seemed in a daze - as if his very existence was causing him pain. And that, above everything else, worried her.

She drove them to her loft without thinking about it, and didn’t hesitate as she parked and got out of the car to help him. 

If was surprised he didn’t show it, he walked beside her, footsteps heavy - his conscience even heavier.

It was a familiar ride up to the loft that used to be theirs. An even more familiar trek up to the bedroom she shared with him. Their bedroom.

He paused briefly in the doorway and she saw him glance around, as if placing himself, before she gently slipped her hand into his and urged him forward.

She guided him to his side of the bed, not realizing what she was doing until he was sinking into the mattress.

Easing his coat off of his shoulders, she threw it across the end of the bed and urged him to lay down.

He resisted momentarily, his eyes locking with hers - a pleading, almost begging look flashing through them.

And that’s when she saw something she hadn’t seen in years in his eyes.

Self-loathing.

He didn’t think he deserved this - her - anything. She saw it laid bare before her and she shook her head, sinking down to her knees in front of him.

Grasping her hands in his, tears spilled down her cheeks as the week long exhaustion and fear hit her, reaching a breaking point at seeing him utterly broken in her bed - their bed.

She shook her head, back and forth, back and forth, over and over, letting it come to rest against his - willing him to know the words she couldn’t get out in that moment.

It was the dampness in her hair from his own tears that caused her to wind her arms around him as carefully as possible and hold him to her.

She heard mumbled words coming out of his mouth, repeating the same thing over and over. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She held him tighter, trying to swallow the sobs catching in her throat - trying to be the strength he needed in that moment.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. It’s okay,” she choked out. “It’s okay, Oliver.”

He shook his head back and forth at her reassurances.

“Oliver, please, lay down and sleep. You need rest,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll be right here.”

Finally, he relented and laid back, and she hesitated only briefly before shrugging off her jacket and kicking off her shoes and slipping into bed on her side.

She reached in the darkness for his hand, grasping it tightly when she found it.

She stared at the ceiling until his breathing finally began to even out. But it was his words right before he drifted off that made her heart ache even more.

“I’m sorry for being the monster.”

A tear slipped down her cheek as she turned on her side to look at him, seeking out his face in the darkness.

Reaching up her free hand she traced her fingers over his forehead.

“You’re a man, Oliver Queen. Not a monster, and I will tell you that every day for the rest of my life if that’s what you need to hear to believe it.”

She fell asleep, promising herself and the man next to her that she would fight for them both if he wasn’t strong enough to do it. She would fight to make him see the good man he’d become.


End file.
